Youth bringing a new face to amateur championship

Press, 29 October 1977, Page 24

Youth bringing a new face to amateur championship

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

It has become increasingly apparent in the last five years that the young players, although not completely dominant, are now the major force in New Zealand amateur golf. This claim was substantiated by the second successive victory of the confident 25-year-old Aucklander, Terry Pulman, in the national championship at Russley last Sunday. Golf has gone through its eras. The legendary A. D. S. Duncan, who won the title a record 10 times, B. B. Wood and Sloan Morpeth were the great names in the early 19205; then there was the period of John Hornabrook and Bryan Silk; and in the last two decades players such as Tim Woon, Stuart Jones, John Durry and Ted McDougall have occupied the centre stage. They were famous names, seasoned players. But there has been a transformation since another noted amateur, Ross

Murray, won the 1972 championship. The last four champions have been all under 30 years although they could hardly be termed inexperienced.

Mike Nicholson was 20 when he won the 1973 championship but had represented Bay of Plenty in four Freyberg tournaments; the next year Rod Barltrop, aged 28, was triumphant and he too had had years of Freyberg experience for Wellington; Stuart Reese was 21 when he beat a 15-year-oid Stephen Barron in the 1975 final and Pulman has upheld the emerging youthful image. Reese was a Freyberg representative for Waikato and Pulman was the Auckland matchplay champion in 1974. But the swing in favour of the young brigade is not altogether surprising. In recent years, youngsters have been given every encouragement to develop their games at an

early level. Many are basically sound players before their teens and the results of this early upbringing is evident in their performances in the best of company.

Six of the quarter-final-ists last week were under 30 and the youngest, Stephen Paterson, has just turned 18. Bruce Taylor, aged 30, and Barltrop, now 31, were the “old hands.” Since the first championship in 1893, only one amateur, Duncan, at the turn of the century, has won three successive championships and that challenge is high on Pulman's list of priorities. His next chance will be at Hastings in May. Pulman is ’ the sixth player to have had a double success. He joins such illustrious names as Wood (1912-13), Rana Wagg (1931-32), Hornabrook (1935-36), Woon (1950-51) and again in (1953-54) and Jones (196162). Pulman left no doubts that his biggest ambition is to play for New Zealand and he admitted that he was ‘‘hacked off” when he failed to make the team that competed in Australia last year. He won six of his seven matches for Auckland ;.t the Freyberg tournament, but agreed that his cause was not helped by playing at No. 3. The New Zealand Golf Association has accepted an invitation from Papua New Guinea to send a team of four for a new amateur tournament in Port Moresby next June and Pulman is keen to gain one of the places. Pulman had no easy passage to the final and for most of the week he was under pressure to remain in the running. He had two unspectacular 78s in the qualifying rounds, needing 40 putts on the first day. Then came the mentally and physically demanding rounds of match play and three times Pulman found himself marching up the eighteenth fairway. He could have easily lost to Coringa’s quick-swinging, Dave Render, in the second round. They both had their share of birdies and were all square after 14

•*I thought pars would do over the final holes,” 1 Pulman said, but Render plaved so well over the final holes that Pulman needed a 2m birdie putt on the last green to halt his rival. Render let a great opportunity go begging bv three-putting the fifteenth. But the harder the opponent, the better : Pulman played. His drivI ing was consistently long I and accurate; his putting ; was sound and there were ; no three-putts on the final I two days. Even so, he should have lost to his ; Frey berg team-mate, Phil ! Reid, in the semi-finals. : “We have a lot of respect for each other, in the end | it boiled down to putting,” said Pulman. . P A R. are Reid s initials and that was the type of i golf the redoubtable AuckI land No. 2 played over the I .week with a sprinkling of

birdies included. Beaten in the semi-finals of the' championship last year, Reid, 2 down after 10, won four of the next five holes and was 1 up with two to play. There were the usual share of surprises. The top qualifier, .lames Angus (Russley) and the powerful national representative, Michael Nicholson, went out in the first round. One of the quarterfinalists, Paterson, only reached the championship after qualifying in a playoff. Ron Hazeldine came close to bringing glory to himself and Hokitika when he took Taylor to the last hole. At the eighteenth Hazeldine placed his second in a bunker. There are no bunkers on his home course and he approached the shot with trepidation. He went from one to another and that sealed his fate.

The two finishing holes at Russley are reasonably straight-forward par fours, but Reid chipped and twoputted the seventeenth and then committed the cardinal sin of three-putting the last to lose both. Pulman took full advantage of these lapses, although his Im putt for a par on the last green just caught the side of the cup and

went in. Reid missed his from a similar distance. Pulman, rather fortuitously, was in the final but there was no element of luck attached to his overwhelming win, 9 and 8. over Taylor. He played impeccably, never dropped a shot, and was five under when the match finished at the twentyeighth. Taylor was only four over at that point but at no stage was he in a position to apply pressure on the unflappable Pulman.

If there was disappointment that Taylor was unable to score a victory on his course, there was some compensation in the win of Des Turner (Christchurch) in the New Zealand plate final. Turner was one of many prominent players who made a surprise exit in the first round of the championship. Unfortunately for him, he played his best golf in. the plate rounds and his victory in the event was his second. Turner has an impressive record in the championship; he has won the plate twice and reached the semi-finals of the championship on the other two occasions.

In an impressive parade of young talent, there looked some outstanding prospects for the future.